Christian Lundgaard finished sixth in the opening IndyCar practice session from Barber Motorsports Park, a marked improvement on his early weekend performance so far this season.
In fact, the entire Rahal Letterman Lanigan team has struggled with setup throughout the year so far, with all three drivers often finding themselves with cars that are difficult to control.
That trend may have been reversed this weekend, with Lundgaard saying after the opening practice session that he felt quite comfortable straight away.
“We have not had a weekend this year, in my opinion, where we started the weekend off quick enough, competitive enough,” said Lundgaard after Friday practice. “I did today.
“I went straight out and I felt great. Obviously having had the test here helped.
“I mean, obviously we always want to roll off the truck competitive. That’s what everyone wants because it sets your weekend, it sets the ground for the rest of the weekend. It is tough.
“I mean, just from my own experience in St. Pete, we struggled a lot in practice one. I never really felt like we recovered from that. So this is a great start to the weekend for us, then we’ll see what it leads to.
“It means a lot now, but we got to keep that going into qualifying tomorrow.”
Lundgaard was not the only member of his team that has struggled, with Graham Rahal and Jack Harvey also fighting ill-handling cars most of the season so far.
Not only has that meant the crews for all three RLL cars have been chasing setups instead of fine tuning performance, it has taken a bit of confidence away from the drivers.
At least for one of the #45 entry, it appears this weekend may finally allow the driver’s skill to lead to results on the track.
Even though Rahal and Harvey ended Friday in the 12th and 20th positions respectively, the team should be able to bring over components of Lundgaard’s setup that is working so well for him.
There is one more practice session remaining on Saturday morning before the all-important qualifying which takes place just after 1:00 PM.
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